New Jordanian Payphone Licences

New Jordanian Payphone Licences Two new payphone licences which, in total, involve running well over two hundred public telephones, have been awarded by the TRC, the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Jordan. The first went to a consortium of Trans Jordan in partnership with OTE, the Hellenic Telecommunications Organisation of Greece. The second licence was awarded to another consortium led by Rumeli Holdings of Turkey and Alpha International. In all, eighteen groups put in bids to run the country's payphone service which, until now, has been operated by the Jordanian Telecommunications Company UTC). The licences are, in both cases,to run for fifteen years and require that payphone services shall be provided in all settlements with populations of over fivehundred people and in all parts of the Kingdom. As an incentive, the consortia have been promised exemption from customs duties on imported equipment and they will also be freed from paying certain taxes. We shall provide further details of any card services that the two operators introduce once they have become established.